Fellows : b

makalani bandele

I am a Louisville, KY native. I am an ordained Baptist minister and former pastor. I hold degrees from University of Notre Dame and Shaw University-Divinity School. A member of the Affrilachian Poets since 2008, I received a Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith fellowship, as well as fellowships from Millay Colony of the Arts…

Aziza Barnes

Samiya Bashir

Samiya Bashir’s work includes the forthcoming book of poems, Field Theory, as well as Gospel, Where the Apple Falls, and the anthology Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art coedited with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and she is the recipient of…

Holly Bass

Venise Battle

Herman Beavers

Joshua Bennett

Michelle Courtney Berry

Michelle Courtney Berry, the second Poet Laureate of Tompkins County, has appeared on “Good Morning America” and was elected delegate for Mr. Barack Obama in her Congressional District by over 16,000 votes. A former City Councilwoman and Alternate Acting Mayor for the City of Ithaca, she teaches at Ithaca College and Cornell University. She has opened in poetry and song…

Lillian Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in English at Williams College where she teaches poetry. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University, and received her MFA in poetry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she worked on the magazine Ninth Letter. She is a Cave Canem…

Marion Bethel

Reginald Dwayne Betts

Dwayne writes poems. This is what he tells people, this is what he stands by. In the footnotes of his life there will be a line that reads: saved by an Etheridge Knight poem. In August 2009 his memoir, A Question of Freedom, was published by Avery/ Penguin – it is a complicated story of…

Tara Betts

Originally from Illinois, Tara Betts is the author of Arc and Hue. She is a graduate of the New England College MFA Program. She represented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam, coached youth who went on to Brave New Voices, and appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Her writing has also been dramatized for the…

Angela A. Bickham

Remica L. Bingham

Remica L. Bingham, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, received her MFA from Bennington College. She has been awarded fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops and Cave Canem. In addition to other journals, her work has been featured in 5 AM, New Letters, PMS, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, Mosaic, and Essence. Her first book,…

Destiny Oshay Birdsong

Destiny Birdsong is a graduate of Fisk University, where she received her B.A. in History and English. She is also a graduate of Vanderbilt University,where she received her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry), and where she is currently working towards a PhD in literature. Her current manuscript is tentatively titled Sugar: Poems.

Timothy Black

Timothy Black’s first book, Connecticut Shade, a fusion of poetry, prose and play, was published in 2008 and is currently in its second printing from WSC Press. Tim’s poetry has appeared in the journals The Platte Valley Review, The Logan House Anthology of 21st Century American Poetry, The Great American Roadshow and Words Like Rain.…

Tommye Blount

A native of Detroit, Tommye Blount is purusing an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. He recieved his B.A. in advertising from Michgan State University. He’s had work published in the Cave Canem XI Anothology, The Collagist, and Upstreet.

Roger Bonair-Agard

Shane Book

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Shane Book’s first collection, Ceiling of Sticks, won the 2009 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the 2012 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and was a 2011 Poetry Society of America “New American Poet” Selection. He is a graduate of New York University and the Iowa…

Malika S Booker

Malika Booker is a British writer of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, who writes poetry, plays and solo monologues. Her poems are widely anthologised in anthologies and journals including Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry (The Women’s Press, 1998), Wasafiri; No 32 (Autumn 2000), The Penguin Anthology of New Black Writing (2000), The India International Journal (2005),…

Dexter Booth

Crystal Boson

Jari Bradley

jaribradley.com Jari Bradley is a black genderqueer poet and scholar from San Francisco, California. Jari has received fellowships from Callaloo, Cave Canem, and Tin House. Their work has been featured in the Huffington Post, and is listed by Blavity among “15 Creatives in the Bay Area You Should Know.” Jari’s work has also been published…

Antoinette Brim

Antoinette Brim, author of two collections of poetry “Icarus in Love” (Main Street Rag, 2013) and “Psalm of the Sunflower” (Willow Books, 2009), is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow, a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry, memoir and critical work…

Matthew Broaddus

LeRonn Brooks

Derrick Brown

Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. He was the founding Poet-In-Residence at Busboys and Poets and has taught creative writing and poetry at all levels of education. His poetry has been featured in such publications as The Washington Post, The New Orleans Times-Picayune and Colorlines. His work has also been featured in such journals…

drea brown

Originally from St.Louis, drea brown is currently a PhD candidate in African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin. her work has appeared in a variety of literary journals most recently Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander and Southern Indiana Review. drea is also the winner of the 2014 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook competition judged by…

F. Douglas Brown

Jericho Brown

Mahogany L. Browne

Mahogany has four LPs including the international hit Black Secret Soul and the newest live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Her freelance journalism can be found in magazines…

Gloria Jean Burgess

Poet, author, mother, daughter, sister, consultant, and executive coach; 33 years in a legacy marriage. Faculty: University of Washington, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center (Leadership Institute), and Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Three books of poetry, including The Open Door and Journey of the Rose. Best-selling non-fiction: Dare to Wear Your Soul on the Outside (Jossey-Bass/Wiley) and…

Jocelyn Burrell

CM Burroughs

CM Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from organizations including Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Cave Canem, Callaloo Writers Workshop and the University of Pittsburgh. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations. A graduate…

Evan R. Burton

Evan Burton lives in Harlem. He is an MFA candidate at the City College of New York and a first year fellow. He thinks of poetry variably, as a space ship, a possibility, an angry something; as an art perpetually disappointed by its practitioners, as something to do on Sundays, as an alternative to employment,…

“By the time I leave a CC Retreat, I can feel that the internal imperative to Write! has shifted from an obsessive, isolating quality to one of deep communal rites and responsibilities – what healthier transition exists for an artist?

Geffrey Davis

2015-11-26T15:51:22+00:00

Geffrey Davis

“By the time I leave a CC Retreat, I can feel that the internal imperative to Write! has shifted from an obsessive, isolating quality to one of deep communal rites and responsibilities – what healthier transition exists for an artist?

https://cavecanempoets.org/testimonials/geffrey-davis/

“There is nothing like being seen by the eyes of those who, without explanation, understand why you do what you do when you do it. There is nothing like not having to decode or apologize for the sweet pleasure of a word or phrase that will not let loose of your ear.”

Nikky Finney, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South

2015-11-26T15:29:19+00:00

Nikky Finney, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South

“There is nothing like being seen by the eyes of those who, without explanation, understand why you do what you do when you do it. There is nothing like not having to decode or apologize for the sweet pleasure of a word or phrase that will not let loose of your ear.”

“While I can't even begin to measure Cave Canem's value to me personally (community, friendship, rigor), we all can see the radical movement it’s occasioned in American poetry. To be plain: it's changed—and is changing—the face(s) of our literary landscape. How often in our lives will we be able to participate in something as important and beautiful? It's a joy to support this."

Ross Gay, Fellow

2015-11-26T15:44:48+00:00

Ross Gay, Fellow

“While I can't even begin to measure Cave Canem's value to me personally (community, friendship, rigor), we all can see the radical movement it’s occasioned in American poetry. To be plain: it's changed—and is changing—the face(s) of our literary landscape. How often in our lives will we be able to participate in something as important and beautiful? It's a joy to support this."

https://cavecanempoets.org/testimonials/285/

“Cave Canem is a kind of heaven, yes. It’s not just that we are speaking to each other there as black people; it’s that we’ve lived the lives of black poets. We’ve faced the fears, the hurts, and we’re still poets. To undertake and stay with this task, usually so unrewarded, creates a kind of strength and compassion that is enormous.”

Toi Derricotte

2015-11-26T15:31:58+00:00

Toi Derricotte

“Cave Canem is a kind of heaven, yes. It’s not just that we are speaking to each other there as black people; it’s that we’ve lived the lives of black poets. We’ve faced the fears, the hurts, and we’re still poets. To undertake and stay with this task, usually so unrewarded, creates a kind of strength and compassion that is enormous.”

https://cavecanempoets.org/testimonials/toi-derricotte/

“Back in 2000 when I was first accepted at Cave Canem, I was working part-time at a bookstore making less than $7 an hour. The scholarship I received was the only reason I was able to attend, and it changed my writing life by introducing me to mentors like Toi Derricotte and Nikky Finney and eventually connecting me to the editor who published my first book. Please consider changing another poet's life by supporting Cave Canem financially.”

Traci Dant, Fellow

2015-11-26T15:44:16+00:00

Traci Dant, Fellow

“Back in 2000 when I was first accepted at Cave Canem, I was working part-time at a bookstore making less than $7 an hour. The scholarship I received was the only reason I was able to attend, and it changed my writing life by introducing me to mentors like Toi Derricotte and Nikky Finney and eventually connecting me to the editor who published my first book. Please consider changing another poet's life by supporting Cave Canem financially.”